


Break

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Coffee, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-18 21:22:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,411
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16524902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Frank Castle loves coffee.





	Break

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mx_vertiginous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mx_vertiginous/gifts).



> Tumblr Prompt for my NaNoWriMo project from mx_vertiginous: Just an internal dialogue of Frank enjoying the fuck out of his coffee like it’s the only thing that gives him life.
> 
> This is... uh, kind of that.

Frank loved his job.

He did. Really. He was lucky that way; a lot of people got up and trudged to work and couldn’t stand the thought of their life spent this way. Frank looked forward to coming, was the first to volunteer to stay late, come in on holidays, whatever.

Frank loves his job, but he loves these moments between the swing of the hammer and the clash and squall of construction equipment better. Give him a good thermos of coffee and a windy, quiet perch, up and away from where the rest of the crew took their breaks, and he was a happy man. Maybe only for a few minutes, but it was pure, that happiness, and he relished it.

He likes coffee. Likes the heat and the bitterness. He likes the smell of it, the buzz of caffeine, the dark, gripping quality of the flavor. He likes the way the taste sticks to his mouth, and he likes the way a good cup of coffee sticks with him, makes him feel as satisfied as if he’d eaten a small meal. 

Karen’s coffee is always shit. She’s got a lot of talents, Karen has, but coffee brewing ain’t one. She likes it weak and overly complicated, flavors that don’t have any business in coffee, like raspberries or amaretto. Sometimes Karen brings a thermos of coffee with her when they meet and he drinks his share, even enjoys the weirdness of apricot flavored coffee, but he never takes her up on her offers of gift sachets of her beans.

Curtis does a little better, but he does best with industrial quantities. Cheap grounds in pre-measured filters, pushed into a big forty cup urn that, with the flip of a switch, brewed up enough decent coffee for the therapy group to get through a session. Curtis laughs at his need for a fix when they get together for lunch, and sits there refusing to move until Frank finishes whatever he ordered aside from the coffee. He cares, is the point of that little show, just as much as he’s done dealing with Frank’s shit.

David, of all the friends who make Frank coffee, is the only one who comes close to what Frank really likes. Between himself and Sarah, David had no choice but to learn to brew a decent pot of coffee. Sarah likes a dark roast; Frank likes the acidity of a lighter roast. David finds balance by brewing what his wife likes and then apologizing to Frank. Still, at least it’s not hot water with a coffee flavor to it.

What Frank likes best though is when he can go into a gas station -- Sunoco is good, but Mobil usually is better -- and fill his thermos. The coffee is usually burnt and it’s kept way too hot and the flavor is muddled at best, but it’s -- there’s nostalgia to it, okay? It’s garbage coffee but he’s a garbage man, or whatever. 

What he loves about gas station coffee is that it’s the simplest, least pretentious cup of heavily caffeinated mud he can find. He can fill a two quart thermos for less than ten bucks. It’s quick and it tastes like -- well, it tastes like shitty coffee, but it’s still coffee. 

Maria had always insisted on half-and-half in her coffee, and back in that life, Frank had often dumped equal amounts in both mugs, so she could take whichever mug tickled her. She’d loved those mismatched mugs, all kinds of stupid puns and animals on them. She’d collected them, delighted in the ridiculous things people would print on them. She insisted that cream made the coffee stick with you better, but Frank thought she just liked the taste.

Half-and-half spoiled, especially if you didn’t have a fridge. Frank had quickly gotten out of the habit of using it. He liked coffee black just fine.

Letting his feet dangle over the ledge of a half-constructed building, Frank squints at the skyline and sips at the cup in his hand. The aroma is thick, dark and bitter and more comforting than Frank wants to admit. This is the best part of the work day, as far as he’s concerned. He loves the feel of working his body to exhaustion, really pushing himself as he drives the hammer against old brick; he likes the bunch and stretch of muscle, the feeling like tearing across his shoulders when he goes too hard too fast. But the warmth of the cup in his hand, the smell of the steam ghosting up under his nose, the infinite familiarity and comfort of that taste -- that’s the best part of the day, for sure.

Coffee is more than a staple in his diet. It’s connective tissue to his life -- his lives. Pete Castiglione drinks coffee; black, shitty gas station coffee, burnt diner coffee, whatever he can get. 

The man who stands at an awkward arm’s length from Karen at all times and kisses her cheek before walking away from her, certain that every time will be the last -- he sits across from her at her little breakfast table and drinks her weak coffee and smiles like it’s the best he’s ever had -- and that’s the closest to lying to her that he can manage. 

The man who creeps into Curtis’s groups, bolder each time he takes a seat in that circle with the other vets, who goes out with Curtis at least once a month, tacit agreement after all the shit last year, and lets himself be strong armed into eating a full meal -- he sits in that circle with a little styrofoam cup of the most offensively cloying coffee and sips it thoughtfully, appreciating the way the taste sticks to his mouth, and he tells Curtis and all the others, ‘I’m not dead yet. I don’t want to die yet.’ -- and it’s not a lie, not anymore.

And the man who trudges up the Liebermans’ front steps, tired beyond words, who catches two wrecking balls of child, Leo against one side and Zach against the other as soon as he opens the door -- who sleeps on their couch and cooks breakfast without needing to be told where the ingredients are, who sits between David and Leo, across from Sarah, and drinks bitter, dark cups of coffee that David without fail will apologize for while Frank laughs and pours expensive syrup on his pancakes and drinks the hot mess Sarah loves so much and acts like this is all normal -- and maybe it is, now. 

Maria’s Frank loved coffee, too. The Frank who missed seeing his little boy’s first steps but never forgot a date, not one birthday or anniversary; he loved coffee. The Frank who watched his parents, first his mother and then, nine months later (carrying his grief full-term, Frank thinks sometimes), his father be lowered into graves that seemed too deep somehow, too big -- that Frank had stood at the memorials and drank bad coffee and refused to weep.

Go back far enough, and it’s the boy, getting up with just enough time to stalk off to school without ending up late, who’s mother pressed a mug into one hand and a piece of toast into the other and bade him  _ eat _ with such stern affection that there was nothing to do but obey, sipping bad coffee sweetened with honey that he didn’t want but that Ma insisted would keep sore throats away. 

There’s a comfort in the bitter, in the dark. Coffee runs through his life like a tether, grounding the versions of him that stack up around him like masks in some weird vaudeville act, a one man show with too much blood. 

Frank loves coffee. He loves the consistent nature of it; it will be bitter, it will warm his hands and his throat and his stomach, if he drinks enough. It will keep him up, keep him moving. He loves these empty half-hours, sitting on the ledge high above the bustle of this ugly, damned city, listening to the sound of the construction teams calling their breaks as he sips his way through two quarts of hot, too-strong gas station coffee. He loves these moments because in them, he is nothing but him, no pretense, no art; he is a man who is cold, and so he holds the warm cup, he drinks the warm drink, and he lets himself acclimate. Lets himself be happy, just for a moment. 


End file.
